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II ADHYÂYA, 3 PÂDA, 14.
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texts such as he who dwells in the earth, and within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is and who rules the earth within' show that the elements enter on their activity only if presided over by an intelligent principle. Texts such as He became sat and tyat' (which occurs in the passage, he wished may I be many, may I grow forth,'Taitt. Up. II, 6) and 'It made itself its Self'(i.e. the Self of everything which exists; II, 7) show that he (the highest Lord) is the Self of everything. The thinking and hearing which the texts attribute to water and fire must be viewed as due to the fact of the highest Lord having entered them; for the passage, 'there is no other seer but he,' denies there being any other seer (thinker), and that which is (i.e. Brahman), in the character of seer (or thinker), constitutes the subject-matter of the whole chapter ; as we conclude from the introductory passage,' It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth'(Kh. Up. VI, 2, 3).
14. The order (in which the elements are retracted into Brahman) is the reverse of that (i.e. the order in which they are created); this is proved (by its agreement with observation).
Having considered the order of the creation of the elements we now proceed to consider the order of their retractation.-The question here is whether their retractation takes place in an indefinite order, or in the order of the creation, or in the inverse order. That the origin, the subsistence and the retractation of the elements all depend on Brahman, scripture declares 'That from whence these beings are born, that by which when born they live, that into which they enter at their death.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that the retractation of the elements is not bound to any definite order, because scripture contains no specific information on the point. Or else, he says, let him who wishes to know the order of the retractation accept the order of creation, since the latter is expressly mentioned in the texts.
To this we reply that the order of retractation must be viewed as the reverse of the order of creation. For we see
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| SR No. | 007682 |
| Book Title | Questions of King Milinda Part 02 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | T W Rhys Davids |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1894 |
| Total Pages | 2240 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 38 MB |